Herdman, Sir William Abbott

Sir William Abbott Herdman, (born Sept. 8, 1858, Edinburgh, Scot.—died July 21, 1924, London, Eng.), oceanographer and a specialist on the marine organisms Tunicata.

In 1881 Herdman became professor of natural history at the University of Liverpool and devoted much time to scientific research and the fishing industry. He founded the Liverpool Marine Biology Committee (1885), which did much to attract professional and amateur oceanographic researchers. He helped establish a fish hatchery at Piel Island, Barrow Strait (1897), which became a marine-biological-research station that conducted studies of plankton and other forms of marine life, in which he himself participated. As well as many professional papers, Herdman wrote a general work, The Founders of Oceanography (1923).